The Effects Of Ergot Poisoning And Mass Hysteria In The Salem Witch Trials

The Effects of Ergot Poisoning and Mass Hysteria Many significant historical events in history provide many unanswered questions about what exactly occurred. Much of this is attributed to the lack of proper documentation or explanation about just what exactly was occurring at the time. The Salem Witch Trials offer an interesting middle-ground to this confusion, in that there was a well-documented history of what was occurring as well as a rather broad explanation of the situation. By the end of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, over one hundred and fifty Salem residents were accused of witchcraft with twenty-nine of them being found guilty and nineteen of them hung. The question then is, what caused all of the hysteria? Of all the atrocities

In the Salem Witch Trials era, it was unheard of and even less so understood as potentially being a cause to many of the various health disorders that the citizens and livestock of Salem experienced. Many of the citizens complained of fevers, hysteria, confusion, black outs, spasms, rambling, choking, or sudden violent outbursts, all of which are confirmed side effects of ergot poisoning. Combine the common side effects with the alternate side effects of blood loss due to constricted veins and the mass hysteria of Salem begins to make sense. Peripheral Vascular Disease is the reduced circulation of blood in the body which leads to intermittent pain like cramps, poor mental judgement, numbness, pins and needles, or even blackened areas of skin that will not heal. Almost every witness in the courthouses complained of multitudes of these symptoms, all of which start with the affection of ergot

She was a tavern where she allowed the patrons to drink ale and play shuffleboard any day of the week and was reluctant to pay her bills. At her trial, a field hand made the claim that he saw an image of Bishop stealing eggs from a neighbor before transforming into a cat and running away. Two of the other accused witches, probably equally as hysterical, testified that Bridget Bishop was one of them and that she had attended a witches’ meeting with them. She was accused of causing various bits of bad luck throughout the community including the death of various livestock after arguments with the livestock’s owners. She was even accused of teleporting away from her prison cell and visiting several of the juries’ homes while they slept. The last whimsical piece of evidence brought forth was a patch of skin on her body that resembled a growth of evil that the crowds claimed was the mark of the Devil upon her. Her case, while being more towards the beginning of the trials, further presses the ideals of random mass hysteria possibly caused by an infection of ergot. She was hung on the basis of false testimony, mostly relating to opinions and false facts that a person of right mindset most likely would not